Idiyappam / Nool Puttu / Rice Noodles

Idiyappam / Sevai / Nool Puttu / Rice Noodles is a famous south indian dish which serves as breakfast or dinner along with some curries or milk. This is steam cooked , so considered a healthy food with proper combination of side dish like vegetable stew or coconut milk.

Idiyappam with Potato & carrot stew is my favourite breakfast. And I love to have it with mushroom masala or chicken curry for dinner 🙂

There are many ways of making idiyappams. But I would say, if you don’t forget some of the important tips, your idiyappam always comes out well.

Tips

Rice flour should be ”fine and smooth”

For making soft dough, use boiling water. If you use normal or even warm it will not come out well.

Knead the dough very well and make soft balls. Use little bit of oil for making the balls.

Use mould with very small holes to have thin noodles

Ingredients

Rice flour 5 cups

Water 6 cups

Salt 1 tea spoon

Oil 3 tea spoon

Step 1: Prepare the flour for idiyappam
Take 4 cups of raw rice in a bowl and soak in plenty of water for 4-5 hours . Wash the rice thoroughly and fully drain out the water . Allow the rice to dry on a cotton cloth or kitchen paper for 5-10 minutes. Take small amount of rice and put it in the mixer grinder and make fine powder. If it does not come out well, use sieve with very small holes to make fine powder. Rest of the backlogs can be put it in mixer grinder again. This process can be repeated till there is no much leftovers. This can be used while making puttu.

If you have provision to do the grinding in the rice-mill, you can use 4:1 ratio boiled and raw rice instead of raw rice, this way you get very soft idiyappams. I get this done from my native place.
Soak the rice for one hour and wash and drain out the water and give for making fine powder.

Take a pan and put the rice flour and fry it in a low flame/heat. Stir well for around 5-10 minutes and you can see that steam is coming out from all over. Take out from the heat and stir for some more time. Allow it to cool in a paper/or in plate. This can be stored for few weeks outside and probably months in Fridge.

If you don’t really want to do the washing and grinding and frying stuff, go buy a pack of idiyappam powder from your nearest supermarket and you are all set for the next step.. 😉

Step 2: Make dough
Add salt and water to a pan/vessel and bring to boil. Once it starts boiling add oil and let it boil for few more seconds.
a. Make the flame/heat low and start adding rice flour to the boiling water by stirring continuously. Once your flour is finished, switch off the flame/heat, stir for some more time and transfer the dough to another bowl. Allow it to reduce the heat and do NOT let it cool completely. Once it is warm, knead and make a soft dough without any lumps (in case if you do not stir nicely while adding flour, lumps will be left out).

If you are putting the rice flour in boiling water you should be careful while stirring to avoid lumps. If you don’t want take the risk do the following;

b. Take a vessel and put the flour in it. Take out the boiling water and directly pour into the flour. By using a spoon, stir the flour and keep it aside for some time. You should not delay in pouring the boiling water after getting it from the stove, as if the water is not hot,Idiyappams will not come out soft. Once it is warm, knead and make a soft dough.

Make medium sized balls and keep it aside.

Step 3: Make noodles
Take Idiyappam mould and grease inside and fill one portion of dough.

Now you are ready for the next step – I use my idli mould & stand to make small idiyappams. You can use steaming-plates as well for this. Greese it and then press through the mould.

Step 4: How to Cook
Put a steamer on heat (I use pressure cooker for making idiyappams). Pour water, just 1-2 cups would be sufficient for one go. Keep the idiyappam stand above the water using a stand and close the lid. Allow to steam cook for 10-15 minutes.

Open the steamer after a while (say, 10 minutes) and take out your soft idiyappams and enjoy your healthy meal 🙂

I am not getting idiyappams soft it is very hard pa I use ponni raw rice only soaked for two hours grinded in mixie steamed for over 10 mins and I prepare the dough but also the idiyappams are very hard I don’t know wats the reason nu pls reply

I love cooking and trying out various recipes, and also to come up with ways to achieve good results in reasonable time and effort 🙂 All of the recipes I post here were tried out by me at least 2-3 times (if not a few dozen times) before I was happy with a simple method which gives me good results. Hope you enjoy making these dishes. Would be thrilled if you let me know in the comments how your experiment went.
If you have recipe requests for any Malabar dishes, please contact me and I’ll make every effort to get the recipe, try it out and post it here.